Care homes, home care agencies and hospices in the UK are inspected by four regulators, one per nation, and each reports differently. England’s Care Quality Commission gives one of four ratings from Outstanding to Inadequate. Scotland’s Care Inspectorate gives grades from 1 to 6 on several questions. Care Inspectorate Wales publishes reports with no overall rating. Northern Ireland’s RQIA publishes inspection reports and, where needed, enforcement notices. A listing on this site shows the registration and rating where one exists, linking to the regulator’s report.
Key facts
| Nation | Regulator | What you see | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| England | Care Quality Commission (CQC) | Overall rating plus five key questions | Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate |
| Scotland | Care Inspectorate | Grades per quality question | 1 (unsatisfactory) to 6 (excellent) |
| Wales | Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) | Inspection report, no overall rating | Narrative under four themes |
| Northern Ireland | Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) | Inspection report, no overall rating | Narrative, plus any enforcement action |
England: the Care Quality Commission
The CQC registers and inspects care homes, home care agencies, hospices, hospitals and GP practices in England. After an inspection it rates the service overall and against five key questions: is it safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs, and well-led. Each gets one of four ratings:
- Outstanding: performing exceptionally well.
- Good: performing well and meeting expectations.
- Requires Improvement: not performing as well as it should; the CQC has told the service how it must improve.
- Inadequate: performing badly; the CQC has taken action, which can include special measures, conditions on registration or closure.
Of the 4,438 CQC-registered services listed on endoflifecare.uk, those with a current rating break down as 197 Outstanding, 2,251 Good, 400 Requires Improvement and 9 Inadequate (checked October 2026). Some services have no rating yet because they are newly registered or have not been inspected under the current framework.
How to read a CQC report:
- Check the inspection date first. The CQC inspects on a risk basis, so a Good service may not have been visited for several years.
- Look at the “Safe” and “Well-led” questions, which predict problems best. A service that is Good overall but Requires Improvement for Safe deserves a closer look.
- Read what inspectors said about medicines, staffing levels at night and end of life care.
- Check whether an earlier Requires Improvement rating has since been addressed; the report will say.
- Since 2024 the CQC has been changing how it assesses services, with ratings updated more often from evidence between inspections. The rating on the CQC website is the current one.
The CQC website lets you search by name or postcode and shows the rating, the report and any enforcement action.
Scotland: the Care Inspectorate
The Care Inspectorate registers and inspects care homes, care at home services and hospices in Scotland. Rather than a single rating, it grades the service on quality questions such as “how well do we support people’s wellbeing?”, “how good is our leadership?”, “how good is our staff team?”, “how good is our setting?” and “how well is our care and support planned?”. Each is graded:
- 6 Excellent
- 5 Very good
- 4 Good
- 3 Adequate
- 2 Weak
- 1 Unsatisfactory
Grades of 4 and above mean the service is meeting the standard; 3 or below means inspectors found weaknesses and will expect improvement, with follow-up. Grades can differ between questions, and the leadership and wellbeing grades are the ones to weigh most. The inspection report explains each grade. Of the services listed on endoflifecare.uk, 505 are registered with the Care Inspectorate.
The Care Inspectorate’s website shows the current grades, the report and any complaints upheld, and lets you search by area.
Wales: Care Inspectorate Wales
Care Inspectorate Wales registers and inspects care homes, domiciliary care and hospices in Wales. Its reports describe findings under four themes: wellbeing, care and support, environment, and leadership and management, and note any areas where the provider is not meeting regulations (“areas for improvement”) and any enforcement. It does not give an overall rating or grade; a consultation on introducing ratings has been discussed but, as of October 2026, reports remain narrative.
So a Welsh listing on this site shows “Registered with Care Inspectorate Wales” with a link to the report but no rating, and that is not a gap in our data. Read the report: a service with no areas for improvement and positive comments under all four themes is the equivalent of a Good. Of the services listed on endoflifecare.uk, 235 are registered with CIW.
Northern Ireland: RQIA
The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority registers and inspects nursing homes, residential homes, domiciliary care agencies and hospices in Northern Ireland. Like Wales, it publishes inspection reports rather than ratings, with findings under headings such as staffing, care delivery, management and the environment, and lists any “areas for improvement” the provider must act on, with timescales. Where a service has failed to improve, RQIA can issue failure to comply notices and take enforcement action, which is published.
RQIA registration also records what a service is registered to provide. Nursing homes in Northern Ireland can be registered for specific categories of care, including care for people who are terminally ill; listings on this site show “Registered to care for people who are terminally ill” where that applies, and 76 listed services carry it. Of the services listed, 247 are registered with RQIA.
What ratings cannot tell you
- How the home feels today. Ratings lag; staff change; a new manager can transform a home in months either way.
- How well end of life care is done. Inspection reports touch on it, but a Good home may have little experience of it and a Requires Improvement home may have an excellent palliative nurse. Ask the questions in our guide to choosing a nursing home for end of life care.
- Whether it is right for this person. Fit, location for family visits, faith, food and atmosphere are not rated.
Use the regulator’s report to rule out services with serious safety concerns and to decide what to ask. Use a visit and a conversation to choose.
What our listings show
Each listing on endoflifecare.uk shows the regulator the service is registered with, the current rating or grades where the regulator gives them, the date of the information, and a link to the regulator’s own page. We do not add ratings, reviews or scores of our own, and the regulator’s information is reproduced under the Open Government Licence. Where a listing shows no rating, it is because the regulator has not given one (all services in Wales and Northern Ireland, and some newly registered services in England and Scotland).
Sources
- Care Quality Commission: How we rate services and find a service
- Care Inspectorate (Scotland): Grades explained and find a care service
- Care Inspectorate Wales: Inspection reports
- RQIA: Inspection reports and registration categories
- Listing counts: endoflifecare.uk, checked October 2026.